


We Cannot Re-Claim what the Sea has Taken

by SpaceArchaeologist



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, Established Relationship, F/F, Family Loss, Immortal Wives Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, M/M, Romance, vengeance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26715988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceArchaeologist/pseuds/SpaceArchaeologist
Summary: Quynh has been taken and cast into the Sea, Andromache refuses to stop searching for and Nicky and Joe are tired of endlessly looking. Is there a way that Quynh can be saved?
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova & Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	We Cannot Re-Claim what the Sea has Taken

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic, and it hasn't been beta'ed. Any feedback would be very welcome! Hope you enjoy it!

Andromache screamed until her throat was raw and the only sound she was making was a pitiful croak. She pulled and fought against her chains until her wrists and ankles were in pieces and blood leaked into the dirt without restraint, only to heal and break again. Six thousand years she had been alive, six thousand years and she had never felt pain like this, never felt so much all at once as she had when Quynh had been pulled from their cell and thrust into that iron coffin. Quynh’s voice screeching her name echoed over and over in her ears until she thought she might go mad with it. 

The guards couldn’t quiet her, or make her still and so after a while they gave up. It wouldn’t last forever, no one can rally without end, not even one who would not stay dead. 

\---------------------------

By the time Nicolo and Yusef found her she had stopped screaming, stopped pulling on her chains. She was slumped motionless and silent against the filthy wall. The wall where less than a day ago Quynh had been restrained beside her, laughing about their impending death. 

Yusef was first through the cell door, bursting in with a clatter, a felled guard topping in ahead of him. In seconds he was by Andromache’s side, hacking through the metal with a brutal efficiency. He was mindless of the wounds he opened on his friend's skin. They could hear the sounds of incoming enemies outside, a hateful cacophony of noise, and they did not have time. Her wounds would heal but if they didn’t move quickly they would heal in captivity. 

It was Nicolo, entering whilst wiping blood from his sword; who voiced the obvious “Quynh?” 

Andromache, now lurching to her feet and reaching for a weapon from Yusef, looked at the men in a way they had never seen from her. Fathomless grief and anguish tempered the unyielding endurance and fury that so frequently graced the warriors face. Oh the fury was there, she burned with it but Nicolo staring at her, saw hopelessness clearer than anything else. 

“Gone” she croaked, her voice little more than a whisper. Immortality came with many perks but it did not stop the effects of dehydration, not until you died from it and it had been many days since Andromache had had water, not to mention that she had been yelling for hours. “Taken. Sea. Iron box.” 

Nicolo and Yusef did not even have time to fully absorb Andromache’s words, much less process what they meant. 

The cell erupted with angry townsfolk and guards, all armed to the teeth. The boys had not been quiet in their attempts to rescue Andromache and Quynh and it seemed as though the whole town had come out to prevent the extraction of the remaining witch. 

The three of them fought viciously, striking down anyone that stood between them and a way out. Andromache led the way, her blade moving in a sharp glorious arc as she cut through anyone that happened to stand against her. Nicolo and Yusef flanked her, if the townspeople had stopped to watch they would have seen the trio moving in an almost dance; beautiful, alluring and well-practiced and yet to a trained eye there was a glaring absence on Andromache’s right side. More than once she left herself open, glancing beside her for a companion that was not there.

At first Nicolo and Yusef thought that she was leading them out of the town, to safety but she kept ploughing through the main streets, not going out of her way to harm anyone but not stopping either. She only came to a halt when she found the priest who had locked her and Qunyh up. The man who had made the decision to rip them apart and shove her heart into a coffin destined for the depths of the Sea. 

She didn’t kill him. 

She shoved him in front of her as she backed against a wall, her sword against his throat. Instinctively Nicolo and Yusef positioned themselves in front of her, side by side, swords drawn and ready in case any of the townspeople took it upon themselves to charge. 

“Where is she?” She snarled in the priest’s ear “Where did they take her” 

“It’s too late” He gasped, his neck grazing the edge of the sword as he was shaking so hard “The Ship has sailed, you’re too late, your witch friend is gone, God will have done with her as He sees fit” Even now, he sounded self satisfied and holier than he had any right to be. Nicolo listened with unveiled disgust. 

“Where did they take her?” Andromache repeated, pressing the blade harder against the man’s throat “Where did they cast off, what direction did they head?” 

The Priest said nothing. Many of the townspeople; those who had not hidden themselves away; had gathered to watch the spectacle but none of them, not even the few remaining guards dared to get too close to the armed men guarding the Witch threatening their priest. 

Andromache tightened her grip “Direction. Now” 

“East” He finally gasped “East. But you will not find her, the will of God has been-” 

Andromache killed him and didn’t wait to watch his body drop on the ground. She was running through the crowd before it hit the dirt, her friends close behind her. This time they did not stop until they had left the wretched place behind them. 

\-----------------------

It was late by the time the warriors felt they had put enough distance between themselves and the town to be able to stop. They halted near the coast, close to the edge of the cliff where they could see out onto the Sea. As they moved along the shoreline to get there they had watched the water to see if even a smudge on the horizon had indicated a Ship but it had long since passed. 

Wordlessly they set up a camp. Andromache had not spoken since they had left the town. Nicolo and Yusef had exchanged several concerned glances but had said nothing. Almost as soon as they had set up for the night, Andromache disappeared into the night, down towards the Sea. Yusef went as though to follow her but his beloved reached out a hand to stop him.

“Let her go, she needs to be alone” He said quietly in Arabic “She will be back” 

Yusef watched her disappear before turning back to Nicolo. He took his lover’s hands and leaned his forehead against his. “We were so close if we had not stopped-”

“If we had not stopped those children would have died” Nicolo told him firmly, but his eyes betrayed the same guilt Yusef was enduring “Neither Quynh nor Andromache would have wanted that” 

“Andromache-” 

“Is grieving, she would not have wanted those children to suffer for Quynh, she knows that Quynh would have chosen them without blinking” The words rang true but they were heavy nonetheless. Quynh was gone, thrown into the Sea and they had not even been there when she had been taken, had not been there when Andromache had watched her other half be ripped from her and so callously disposed of. 

Yuself took Nicolo’s head in his hands and they just stood there for a long moment, both thinking how they would be feeling if they were in Andromache’s position. They were devastated at the day’s events, it felt as though the world was crumbling around them but it was surely nothing compared to what their friend was enduring. 

Thousands of years together to end like this- no it was not an ending. They would find her. 

“We will find her” Yusef whispered “We have to find her”

They did not find her. 

\--------------------------

They searched for years, endlessly and without pause. They tracked down every soul who was listed as being aboard the ship’s manifest and forced them to tell the immortals everything they knew. None of the leads came to anything. Quynh was not found and Andromache slowly pulled further and further away from the two men.

Decades passed and loathe as they were to even consider giving up searching for one of their family Nicolo and Yusef began to realise that they could not continue this search forever. The Sea was a large place and they had no way to locate a tiny iron box in it’s fathomless depths. All of the crew were dead; either by their hand or the ravages of time and the harshness of the era. And after all those drownings, all that death, was Quynh even alive down there anymore?

Andromache did not take it well when they told her that they could no longer look for Quynh. She raged and she swore but they did not back down or change their minds. Life could not be kept on hold forever, there were thousands of people who needed their help, and Quynh could not be helped. They tried to convince her to go with them. She refused, she stayed, fruitlessly searching the sea and coming up empty. 

\---------------------------

Nicolo and Yusef were in London. They had journeyed there from mainland Europe in an effort to locate Andromache. It had been nearly a decade since they had seen or heard from her last, as far as they knew she was still haunting the coast from which Quynh had been cast, desperate for any information that would lead her to the location where her lover had been thrown.

They almost didn’t stop for the man who threw himself in front of their path. He was old, mid seventies maybe and dressed in unwashed and fraying clothes. He looked nothing more than a beggar and whilst they often stopped and helped those in need such as this, it was currently the last thing on either of the men’s minds. 

They were several steps past the old man when he called out to them. “Stop, stop please, I found you at last” 

They continued walking. 

“Stop, please, just a moment” 

Nicolo’s footsteps wavered perhaps just a little but he kept moving on until- 

“Andromache!” The old man yelled out, causing Yusef and Nicolo to almost trip over their own feet; they halted so fast. 

Spinning round Yusef bit out “What did you say?” 

“Andromache” The old man repeated, stopping to cough “That was the name she called out, over and over and over as we sailed away. Andromache” 

“Who? Who called it out?”

“The witch, the witch we drowned, she yelled it even as she was cast over the railings.” 

“Impossible” Nicolo whispered “We checked every-” 

“How else could he-” 

“Where did you get this information” Nicolo asked him, coming very close to the elder “Who told you that” 

“No one! No one! I was there, I saw it myself, I heard it myself. I was told two undying men rescued the second witch and I’ve been searching for years, I need-” 

The warriors ignored his plea “You weren’t on the manifest” Yusef told him, eye’s hard, “There was no one else on the manifest” 

“No,” The old man admitted, “I was not on the manifest. I was too young, I wasn’t meant to be aboard but my brother snuck me on and protected me years later when you came to kill him. You slaughtered my brother and all of his shipmates” The man’s voice wavered. 

“They gave us no useful information” Yusef’s tone now matched the look in his eyes “Why come to us now, fifty years after your brother is dead and gone, why seek his killers out?” 

The world stopped as he spoke again “I know where she is. I know where the witch is” 

“Impossible” Nicolo said again “You cannot” 

“I know where she is” He repeated “Or at least I know exactly where she was cast off, I have a knack for knowing these things in relation to the sea, I can tell you where she is-” 

“Then tell us” Nicolo snapped “Show us”

“No, I need something first” 

It surprised neither of them to hear this, humanity rarely did something for free and this mortal would not have sought out his brother’s killers just to do them a favour. The fact that he had actually managed to track them down was worrisome in and off itself and would later have to be addressed. 

“What is it you want in return for this alleged location?” Yusef asked, willing, if only tentatively to entertain this idea. 

“My village is in danger, it’s being terrorised and we cannot stop the threat, people are dying and none of us are any match. We need help, help us, help me save my children and grandchildren and I will take you to where we threw your friend” 

“Take us there first, and we will help your village. We will not work for free” Yusef told him grimly.

“We won’t be tricked into helping you only to be given a false location” Nicolo added “You will tell us where she is”

The old man didn’t budge in his bartering, he was determined to save his family before giving up any information that could help them. They could torture the information out of him but he was so frail that his body would likely give up before he said anything pertinent. 

“You will come with us” Yusef said finally “You can argue with our leader as to who will help who first, I can’t imagine you’ll win that argument but you’re welcome to try” 

And the next morning, two horses (one bearing an old man in addition to it’s rider) left London at a breakneck pace for the coast. At long last Andromache was to receive news that wasn’t utterly woeful. At long last, perhaps there was a hope.


End file.
